Former Vice President Gore launched The Climate Reality Project “to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis and mobilize citizens to help solve it.”

Tonight at 7 pm Central Time the “24 Hours of Reality” live video stream begins — 24 one-hour presentations from around the world ending with Gore himself in New York delivering a new PowerPoint presentation. You can watch it right here.

In an exclusive interview with CP from July, the Nobel laureate explained what you can expect to see if you tune in:

It will cover a 24-hour period. And I’m preparing a brand new 30 minute multimedia presentation. A keynote slideshow with video and other features that will focus in part on the connection between the extreme weather events all around the world and the climate crisis. And it will begin on September 14th, in prime time, central time zone from Mexico City, and then it will move West to the next time zone over, and continue through all 24 time zones, ending the following evening, in prime time, in New York City where I will give the last of the 24 presentations.

Each site where a presentation originates will have basically the same 30 minute slide show, but with slides used in each time zone that illustrate particular impacts and particular efforts towards solutions at the venue representing than that time zone. And then the second thirty minutes of each hour will include a panel discussion focused on the climate crisis and the solutions to it from the perspective of leaders and scientists and others in that particular location. So it will be a 24-hour event.

I’ll host it from New York City, but really all 23 of the other presenters and I will host our respective presentations. And we have a lot of work underway. There will be 13 languages involved, and we have a lot of work that’s bearing fruit for the events in each of the locations. And this will be designed to present the full truth, scope, and impact of the climate crisis and discuss the solutions to it and again it will be the first of a series of large events that we will hold multiple times a year to mobilize the public around actions to solve the climate crisis. Each global event will focus on a different facet of the crisis and its solutions. And we’re pretty excited about it.

Gore also told me “it’s urgent to rendezvous with reality in order to take the appropriate steps to save the future of civilization as we know it.”

The denial will hit the fan — as one amusing new video from the Project makes clear:

Here’s another video from the Climate Reality Project.

It’s not meant to be a preview — that is here. It’s an eyeball grabber and start people talking.

76 Responses to Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality Starts Tonight: “It’s Urgent to Rendezvous with Reality to Save the Future of Civilization”

I agree with the essence of the comments below. I was hoping to hear Trenberth speaking from Boulder, Suzuki speaking from Victoria about pine beetle kill in Colorado and B.C., etc.

While the basic script is of course good, I’d love to also hear the expertise of folks like that, with Gore’s folks working to tailor a script with each of them. Knowing the content of Gore’s (excellent) talking points and their own talking points, as a screenwriter I know I could’ve knocked this out of the park with each of them.

As it is I’m not learning anything new because Climate Progress covers this stuff so well. And while the University of Victoria student is charismatic for a student, he made some errors and didn’t have total command of the material folks like those I mentioned would have. The Boulder presenter, a world-class science teacher, did by far the best job I’ve seen so far.

The smoking documentary is of course great, so think about more segments like that in the future.

Could this have aired also on Current TV? What would the audience have been there compared to on-line? Is Current TV only in the U.S.? Canada? Could Keith Olberman have yelled some of this stuff?

Playing the clips of Boehner, Rohrbacher, Bachman and Palin is all great, but could use stronger commentary: “What will all future generations think of these comments? Will they be seen as worse than treason, affecting everyone on Earth of every species?”

I know the challenges of time, logistics and budget, but including Perry’s more recent comments would also be great, even if inserted into the panel segments if possible.

The smoking gun that best links human-caused global warming to extreme weather events is sea surface temperatures. This is true of Pakistan’s flooding last July and now, Australia’s flooding in January, the April tornado outbreaks, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, as well as many others. Make this connection. Over. And over. And over.

I’m sure if someone wants to tabulate all the damage in all the states from Tropical Storm Lee, it would rightly be seen as America’s 11th billion-or-more weather disaster of 2011. So far. Gore said in a panel we’d had 10.

To me with their record or near-record sea surface temperatures, Irene and Lee were textbook examples of global warming- invigorated storms and setting dozens of all-time rainfall and flood records. They’re fresh in the minds of everyone in the world’s prime power corridor, so use them.

The same with the drought and heat records in Texas and Oklahoma. You’ve been handed this stuff on a silver platter – grab it (with oven mitts) and run with it! Most Texas cities set their all-time records for 100-degree days, sometimes by over 10 days! People feel that stuff (ask Colorado Bob)! Get with Joe or Colorado Bob here, Jeff Masters and his new weather-record guy, Tom Karl at NCDC and use all this stuff in every panel you can.

Also our favorite commenting meteorologist here Ed Hummel feels that with the entire Arctic warming so dramatically relative to lower latitudes, the jet stream that is usually vigorously traversing west to east is often becoming far more lethargic and meandering north to south and back north again. This creates blocking patterns like we’ve seen over Oklahoma and Texas almost all summer and the increased heat and drought create positive feedbacks, reinforcing each. Then the jet stream can pull Gulf moisture up the Ohio River Valley (April floods) or create record April heat and humidity fueling the tornado outbreak, etc. Also the dry air can stall tropical storms like Lee, and make them move at 2 mph so that rainfall is far more intense in a given location.

Use all the data and slides you have, they’re all great – just get as current as you can with all this stuff on the panels.

And I love Heidi Cullen, because she really knows her stuff and it shows. But as others have said, if Oprah and other women and people of color could be included, that would be great. Susan Solomon, Judith Lean, Warren Washington, David Suzuki, Elizabeth Korten, Beth Holland, Marika Holland and of course Rajendra Pachauri all have great knowledge and would add some diversity, while I also of course love Jim Hansen, Kevin Trenberth, Ben Santer, Michael Mann and Bill McKibben – oh, and for knowledge, candor, speaking ability, humor and hairline diversity, use Joe Romm!

Of course the ultimate in diversity, knowledge and bully pulpit would be to get Jane Lubchenco, Steven Chu and Barack Obama to take their self-imposed muzzles off and tell us what everyone of every future generation will be puzzled we didn’t hear from them.

If you want to see what tackling tough issues does for your legacy, consider how Lincoln and FDR are regarded relative to Buchanan and Hoover. To this point if Obama had passed a Civil Rights Act it would have a tenth the teeth of Johnson’s. That is sad. This is about giving civilization a chance to survive, not inflating our egos, which is the very source of our problems.

24 hours of climate science reality! A wonderful project and I hope it is an attention grabber. Every time Mr Gore makes a public statement it always attracts the science deniers and the wacko conspiracy theorists…like chumming for sharks.

I am all for 24 Hours of Reality & Al Gore’s communication concept. However, I am so sensistized to the topic[s] that right now I have to turn down the bombastic music that sounds too much like every other TV entertainment extravaganza. To the pros who think this is best – you may be right about the masses. I am the type who thinks the most brilliant introductions arepure acoustic. Fellini’s La Dolce Vida comes to mind. Anyway, good work! Good luck!

Did they review tapes of this translator before hiring her? The disaffected tone really disconnects the content from any narrative flow. I am listening only because this is an experiment in an area of my prior interest.

I just tuned in and boy is that a lot of academic-y old white men talking to a pretty professional white lady. If I’m turned off by that, I imagine others are too. Are there no lady climate scientists or climate scientists of color? That panel needs some diversity in the worst way.

For for reaching a global audience with many cultures – choosing an extremely WASP-y female hostess showing leg to the upper thigh seems culturally tone-deaf. Al Gore should have tried to get Oprah – who has the experience to translate/buffer the science & make it sink in. There may be other women of color who could be a good moderator …

Appeals to compassion for poor people who are feeling the impacts of climate change will not reach the people who you have not already reached.
Show them rich people crying over their destroyed property. That will hit home with them.

Thank God someone is saying something about this instead of just wining all the time. At-least he’s trying to educate people. How many natural disasters have to happen before it becomes obvious? How many more floods, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Dust storms, and wild fires do we need to convince us?

I like the idea of “24 hours of reality” but I share others’ concerns about delivery.

Meanwhile, actual reality is getting pretty darn grim. The ships traversing the now-open Northeast Passage are reporting “seas bubbling [with methane] as if they were boiling.” A team of climate scientist has been rushed up there ‘on short notice’ to measure and examine what is going on with this ‘dramatic increase’ in methane release from the Arctic.

wili –
About your quote :
” “seas bubbling [with methane] as if they were boiling.”

When I saw your link, a couple of days ago that quote wasn’t in the story, now the story has been rewritten . But I need to see where people have made the remarks you site.
I’m attacking, I want the source of that quote.

Yes, it’s a blog. But it seems generally to be a relatively mundane blog keeping up with latest developments in shipping in the Arctic. This is not a place where one regularly finds wild, unsupported claims about anything. It would be good to get more sources on this, but search ‘arctic methane’ and you will find plenty of scientific and amateur observations about increased methane release from the Arctic over the last few years. The question is whether these recent indications are a big increase above and beyond the increases we’ve already been seeing lately. If you or anyone else has relevant info on this, I would appreciate their sharing it with the rest of humanity here. Perhaps Joe knows some of the scientists that were rushed up to the Arctic to check out this new development? Do you Joe? Are you currently in touch with them? Are things as bad as they sound from these reports?

I would have liked to see each presenter provide their own commentary and maybe a few slides to be added to the main slides (though those slides are Great!) That video between the hour about science denial is amazing!

Having people simply read the script is not an effective tool at persuasion.

Nearly the same script over and over, recited near the beginning of each hour, was not what I expected. I thought we were going to see fresh documentary evidence and unique messages from each time zone.

Republican friends won’t even listen. As usual. Believe all the talking point herrings! So who are we preaching to. Corporations own congress. All elections must be 100% tax funded with all candidates receiving same amounts, media donating each same amount of time, no other funds aloud and faster too like UK before we have a shot of changing anything. Don’t believe we have time. Can’t believe even highly educated republicans spout out the lies and won’t listen to anyone else, won’t even listen. Not one but all my the truly ignorant republicans I know and call friends.

The avoiders. These are the majority out there. People who kind see what GW is but don’t think its that serious a problem or don’t want to see it as a serious problem because they know it will impact their life style.

Almost all my family and friends fall in to this category despite my constant haranguing about the situation.

The kid from BC missed the chance to just talk about the beetle kill there, and how the loss of this forest, is tipping other dominoes. And how these creatures have already adapted to the new normal.
BC has had some of the worst storms , am I the only one who remembers how much BC has been torn-up ?

Pricing carbon –
Please, can we explain from now on that, the price of carbon is currently “off the books” ? That price isn’t on the bottom line of Exxon. It’s always been exported to the “commons”. They didn’t pay Japan for 6 feet of rain 2 weeks ago.

There’s lots of good information, but I’m afraid the goal of raising awareness is being overcome by events. Al Gore has done an admirable job of warning everyone about climate change. At this point, I think he’s reached just about everyone who is reachable on that message. It’s time to move into a more timely role.

What I’d suggest is for Al Gore to define a new role for himself in leading people in the preparation for the inevitable climate change effects. One useful goal would be to create an active, cross-country network of disaster relief. When something like hurricane Katrina occurs, we need a distributed network of charitable people across the country who are willing to provide support (food, water, shelter) for climate refugees.

If people see that such a network exists and is proactively dealing with climate change, they might become more open to the idea that climate change is real. This might be a more effective way for Al Gore to get his message across than to continue preaching that climate change is happening.

“Adaptation”
What this really means, is …… you leave wherever you are. How bad will get before you just must go. That’s “Adaptation”.
That’s how man adapted , he got up and let when conditions became unbearable, our high-tech world hasn’t that.

Yes, there is some great content comparing the sadly addictive tobacco and fossil fuel industries, and their very evil PR work to preserve the oh-so-profitable status quo.
Yes, many of the basic slides aren’t bad.

On the other hand, is this the best that Al and his team could come up with? A slide show that is (mostly) repeated 24 times?

There is so much in the way of little-known, interesting, solid, helpful information that could be included about many aspects of AGW!
They could have at least covered three or four time zones with fresh material before repeating the entire show a number of times.

As just one example, in answer to the oft-heard question dealing with how we know that global warming is caused by man, why not explain the use of isotopic labeling? Folks seem to be able to deal with “carbon dating” when it’s about determining the age of an artifact, so why not explain that a similar technique clearly links atmospheric CO2 with fossil fuels? This level of detail would add some valuable weight to the argument.

So, if this show is preaching to the choir–all 0.003 percent of the global population watching–then what can be done.

As I’ve indicated before, what’s needed is for every caring global citizen to focus their attention on getting one man to speak out. One man who could change the whole climate change scene in just one well-placed hour, on prime-time American television.

This country was made great through its focus on science and technology. For Obama to let every GOP presidential candidate (save Jon Huntsman) get away with desecrating
that very same science when it comes to the topic of global warming is inexcusable.

It’s beyond time for Obama to tell his speech writers to polish his “State of the Climate” address, to notify the networks that he’s going to give a game changing speech from the Oval Office, to grab Chu, Holdren and any other high-ranking support he needs, and to lay it all out there for the American people:

“Folks, global warming is real, it’s caused by man, and we need to join the rest of the world in urgently dealing with it now. “I am hereby shifting our nation’s major resources from the wars on drugs and terrorism, currently consuming some 60+ percent of our nations wealth, to a war on fighting global warming. “It’s not going to be a short battle, nor an easy one, but it’s one that we can win–if we all work together, Republicans and Democrats…etc…”

If the president of the United States (POTUS) can’t gather up all of his vast resources and make a case for science, in a country that was built on science, in the year of our Lord 2011, Heaven help us!

Obama could become a true, global hero to the human race, and become a two-term president to boot.

It’s not because we don’t have the political will, as others have argued, that we have a climate crisis. It’s because we have a very confused electorate who are way beyond their depth.

This is a situation that loudly cries out for leadership from the very top. Obama needs to speak and act in a way that will convince confused Americans of the truth.

Then, as Gore requests in his program, each newly-informed American (from the above-mentioned Obama SOTC address), needs to make it clear that they will only vote for candidates who support actions that will ensure the preservation of a livable climate.

I second Richard Brenne’s comment! I’ve thought for some time now that the only realistic chance that this country has for pursuing any mitigation strategy is for the president to throw political caution to the winds and have his own FDR moment. He must be the first educator on this issue since he has the most powerful resources available to deal with it as well as the only nationwide bully pulpit. He must call out the obstructionists in Congress and reveal their corporate backers. He must hit this issue again and again until people are sick of listening to it and then hit them again until it finally sinks into the public consciousness at the same level that 9/11 did. And if he fails to ignite public sentiment in any meaningful way and actually just commits political suicide because the forces of denial turn out to be too strong, it doesn’t really matter since we’re all screwed anyway. But if he succeeds, then we just may have a chance to actually curb the most extreme effects which will quickly become inevitable. But the president must act immediately while firing all his political advisers since this is NOT a political situation, but a survival situation and they would just get in the way and are irrelevant to the problem.

What I was really hoping to see in this was a detailed video presentation tearing down the fulltime deniers by name. Focusing on U.S. politicians isn’t good enough. Gore needs to smack down the likes of Watts, McIntyre, Spencer, Monckton, etc. Just show clips of their nonsensical “science” and spend a minute or two debunking what they have said or written, backed up with genuine scientific research which has been universal endorsed by the scientific community. With 24 hours, this should have been doable.

I found myself wondering who are the real climate scientists (names, backgrounds, qualifications) around the world that make up the 97% of climate scientists, and who are the 2-3% (names, background, qualifications) who are the deniers. How many climate scientists in the world could there be, and how many have been studying climate for more than 10-years.

Would compiling a list of these scientists (or is there one out there already?) be informative and effective, or just food for climate denier attacks?

I believe the food supply (land agriculture and fisheries) will be one of the first aspects of climate change to affect everyone. Hitting harder on this may also be effective.

Thanks also to you Joe and CP. I read your blog regularly. I knew must of what was presented in the climate realiy project due to what I learned from you.

I hope Gore et al take these comments as the constructive critiques of those who greatly admire his – and his staff’s – great work! All in all, a marvelous concept, beautifully executed. In this spirit, a few observations: I agree with the comments regarding all the skin shown by the young women. That visual at the beginning of old white guys pontificating, while the mini-skirted young woman asks questions was off-putting.

Richard Brenne and others had great suggestions. I too, was looking for real-time links to information/background/media coverage, matched to the presentation timing and language. I also think it would have been helpful to include some introductory info about the flow of the presentations and panel discussions – like an agenda, so people knew what to expect.
(As well as links to background info, on the assumption there would be people new to the issue.) I’m also curious about how the media are being plugged into this – – or maybe that’s the focus for the final hour, the part that will be running on CurrentTV? (That would certainly make sense, it’ll be around prime time in the US, and Al Gore will be speaking, I believe.) Anyway, all in all, well done. Onward!

Did anyone see any mention of it in the MSM, or even in the side stream media? Not us.

Maybe Gore should next gather all of the other living former US presidents and vice presidents and (secretly) encourage Obama to preserve a livable climate for humans by giving a one-hour, prime-time “State of the Climate” address on national TV to millions of Americans who are confused about this issue, and who are hungry for leadership.

Presidents Carter and Clinton could certainly be recruited–possible others.

Gore reached no more than 0.1 percent of the population, according to the latest numbers.
That percentage is too small by at least a factor of 100.

If done right, and repeated, a “State of the Climate” address by Obama could reach the numbers needed to achieve a critical mass among voters. It needs to be done now, not in a hoped-for second term.

There is no way in hell that a majority of properly informed American voters would cast their votes for candidates who were willing to sacrifice a livable climate for their own political and monetary fortunes.

So, please, Vice President Gore, for your next and final great act (because we won’t need another one) go convince others to go with you to convince Obama to do the right thing: Use the presidential bully pulpit to set the record straight on climate change, and to get Americans on course to preserve our one and only climate.

But two messages formed to me: 1) as Mr. Gore said in the final hour, we need to effectively challenge our politicians. We need to tell them that “I care about this issue, I am watching what you do, and I will support you if you push good policy, and I will work to replace you if you don’t.
2) the images of MLK and the effectiveness of his protests. People filled the jails, media took notice, the whole country was affected. Now have the police out-smarted the protestors using a $100 fine and release for a cooperative ‘arrestee.’ Does this processing of the protestors make the protest a non-event, especially if the media does’t cover it? Does an effective protest require resisting arrest so the jails do become filled and the system clogged, and the media do report to awaken consciousness?

Another valiant effort, good on Gore for sure. I still suspect that what is needed is more of a dialogue with joe blo who doesn’t accept the problem and try to find out why not. Odds are there are some fears he has about solutions that don’t allow him to accept the problem. Smoke those out and then address them! That’ll probably help denial more than repeating science (though that’s not all that this project did of course).

I just finished watching Mr. Gore’s presentation and thought it was very good. The first part where he highlighted the folks organizing alot of denier campaign (Sikes etc.) was very good for the time he had.

An excellent and informative presentation – and one that will have to be given over and over until we beat the deniers and can try to save the future of our civilization. Judging by whats going on with the Republican party these days, its going to be a long time before we get to that point, but we can’t give up.

Others here have commented above on the many deficiencies in this 24 talkathon, so I won’t repeat their calmly rational and IMO very fair and justified criticisms.

For me, the truly bad news is that basically no one watched this.

And, for me, the really good news is that basically no one watched this.

Meaning very few saw how poorly (once again) we self-styled climate realists presented a case for action on climate change that is cogent, comprehensive, appropriately combative, and, most importantly, compelling,

Not only do we put forward experts that have no immediate crowd credibility, then have no perceptible talent for communicating hard-to-grasp “realities”, we force them to compete with each other, to fight through droning voiceovers, and to basically fade into forgetability as the big guns take the stage for summations that are as tired in 2011 as they were in 2007.

Sorry, Mr. Gore, but gathering a bunch of establishment activist white guys, and a lot of disjointed material, which to the normal viewer was often not very important (on the promised scale of this “event”) and then “presenting” it in a chaotic jumble with no discernible prioritization, will not by itself gain an audience. As others have stressed here and in dozens of forums and blogs over the past 3 years, we need to stop pretending that the choirs we endlessly preach to are a) significantly sizeable, b) seriously competent in terms of developing and driving climate action programs, and c) willing to do *everything necessary* to stop the Republican (and fellow-traveling Democrat) politicians, and their big corporate and rich scumbag masters from destroying humanity’s chances to survive and prosper.

Again, as others have said again and again, we need programs, websites, events, agendas, educational resources, and seriously motivating, credible speakers and communicators to *engage* the approximately 300 million educated middle-class voters around the world on the issues of climate change.

We need strategies for combating climate change while growing jobs, realistic ideas that non-energy businesses can get behind, and then we need to get the rigid liberals out of their way.

We need to stop ignoring the huge burden and drag on our collective future imposed by unrestricted population growth.

We need a simple, powerful, scary case for taxing carbon fully and fairly in the US right now, then we need the media to beat on this drum over and over and over and over until Obama is reelected, *with* a commitment to implement it, and a Congressional majority that will make it happen.

We need to show the American people honestly how our stupid Republican-generated wars have not only made us less secure than ever, but have made our working classes poor, to boot.

We need candidates that common folk can believe in, and these candidates need MONEY, along with a thick skin, and the courage to face the coming assassination attempts. Do you all forget this wonderful gun-toting, amazingly ignorant, right-wing society we call America? They shoot abortionists, don’t they?

We know who the enemies of rational climate action are, not just the politicians and Koch brothers and their co-conspirators, but the so-called scientists who Fox has the masses convinced deny human-caused climate change. We have the enemies, now where is the army of citizens from 18 to 80 who will volunteer to help us defeat them and their anti-human agendas? Where are the *generals*? For sure, we cannot expect them to come out of the climate science labs to lead us. We cannot look to those in other countries, not when America is the number one obstructionist government to, sorry, Joe, climate progress.

The fact is, until we prove we can formulate a message that will engage and energize the vital voting minority, no general worth the title will step forward to face the huge risks in going up against the combined American political and big business and upper-class megadeath machine.

Hmmm, a message that folks can understand and relate to….

Are you wondering as I am just now why Michael Moore was not the one running Mr. Gore’s show and tell, and tell, and tell, and tell?

I’ve watched a lot of the episodes, and let me say, it’s not all that bad.

The basic presentation was good, and if they could be used by local presenters, it could be effective.

The first 40 minutes of each hour was a repeat of the same presentation — mildly interesting, but basically you only needed to watch one of them to get the message.

The real interesting thing were the 15-20 minute panels at the end of each hour. Although the guests were based in New York, there was a good variety of people and good analysis about the specific region. I heard some good stories. More importantly, I as an activist learned some new rhetorical tropes and ways to frame the issue.

I would love to have them include separate vids of each panel discusion. That was interesting.

Also, the short video comparing tobacco denial to climate denial was frighteningly effective as a persuasive tool. That video (which was repeated a few times) did not mince words about politics.

Finally, let me say that I enjoy the pretty celebrities and hosts. Remember that the target audience of denialists tended to be white males. They don’t want to see or hear Al Gore. On the other hand, they enjoy seeing young people feeling passionate about certain issues.

I tend to agree that a web video by itself isn’t that important (except for energizing activists). But this video will get sent around — and frankly I think climate change just doesn’t get any coverage anymore on US media; perhaps this presentation will drive the talking points for at least the next year.

I admire the fact that Al Gore keeps up the good work & is not fazed by the deniers & their vitriolic attacks on him. Perhaps I’m the only one not to have been appraised of the full extent of the calendar of events. I only saw Al Gore’s video & then saw no follow-up so didn’t know what else was taking place. Some clarity in this regard would have helped. Where can one go for video podcasting of the events, assuming they were recorded & are still available?